MAG. Well, I should, sir.
VANS. There are two of them, I think. Are they fine girls--plump, fresh, full-blown English beauties?
MAG. Sir!
MAD. L. (rising). Excuse me, sir; but I really must beg to retire if you speak of the poor things in that way. Consider their position, sir; consider, too, Miss Garth.
VANS. You good creature, you excellent Lecompte! You see, madam, how she pities them. I don't go so far as that myself, but I can make allowances for them. I am a large-minded man, I can make allowances for them and you. (he takes the strawberry-plate in his lap, and eats carelessly.)
MAD. L. Now, really, sir, you don't intend it, but you shock Miss Garth, you do really; she's not accustomed to you as I am; consider Miss Garth, as a favor to me.
MAG. You are very good, madam; but I make no claim to be treated with consideration. I am a governess, and I don't expect it. I have only one favor to ask--I beg Mr. Noel Vanstone, for his own sake, to hear what I have to say to him.
MAD. L. You understand, sir; it appears that Miss Garth has some serious warning to give you. She says you are to hear her for your own sake.
VANS. For my sake! (puts plate on table, and draws back.)
MAG. (aside). One discovery--he is a coward!
VANS. What do you mean, ma'am? what do you mean by telling me I am to listen for my own sake. If you come here to intimidate me, you come to the wrong man. My strength of character was universally allowed at Zurich, was it not, Lecompte?
MAD. L. Universally, sir; but, perhaps, we have misinterpreted Miss Garth's meaning.
MAG. On the contrary, madam, you have exactly expressed my meaning; my object in coming here is to warn Mr. Noel Vanstone against the course which he is now taking.
MAD L. Oh don't, madam! If you want to help these poor girls, don't talk in that way; soften his resolution by entreaties, don't strengthen it by threats.
VANS. You hear, madam; you hear the honest testimony of a person who has known me from childhood. Take care, Miss Garth, take care. (takes the plate and resumes eating.)
MAG. I have no wish to offend you, I am only anxious to state the truth. You are not acquainted with the characters of those whose fortunes have fallen in to your possession. I have known them from childhood, and I come to give you the benefit of my experience--in their interest, and in yours. You have nothing to dread from the elder of the two, she patiently accepts the hard lot which you and your father before you have forced on her. The younger sister's conduct is the very opposite of this; she has already declined to submit to your father's decision, and she now refuses to be silenced by Madame Lecompte's letter. Take my word for it, sir, she is capable of giving you serious trouble if you persist in making her your enemy.
VANS. (puts plate on table again). Serious trouble! If--if you mean writing letters, ma'am, she has given me trouble enough already. She has written once to me, and twice to my father, and one of her letters to my father was a threatening letter, wasn't it, Lecompte?
MAD. L. She expressed her feelings, poor child, and I thought it hard to send the letter back. What I said at the time, was, why not let her express her feelings? What are a few threatening words in her position, poor creature? they are words, and nothing more.
MAG. (abruptly). I advise you not to be too sure of that; I know her better than you do. You have referred, sir, to my pupil's letters; we will not speak of those she sent your father, we will refer only to that she sent you. Is there anything unbecoming in that letter? Is there anything said in it that's false? Is it not true that these two sisters have been cruelly deprived of the provision which their father made for them, by his dying before he could make a second will for their protection. Can you deny that?
VANS. I don't attempt to deny it, madam; go on, Miss Garth, go on. (plate and strawberry business as before.)
MAG. Is it not true that the law, which has taken the money from these sisters, because their father made no second will, has given it to you, whose father made no will at all? Surely this is hard on these poor girls!
VANS. (eating). Oh, very hard! It strikes you so, doesn't it, Lecompte?
MAD. L. Harrowing! I can characterize it, Miss Garth, by no other word than that--harrowing. But I think you have something more to say about your pupil's letter?
MAG. I have only one more question to put: my pupil's letter addressed a proposal to Mr. Vanstone, and I beg him to inform me why he has refused to consider it?
VANS. My good lady, are you really in earnest? Do you know what that proposal was?
MAG Yes, sir; it was one that asks of your sense of justice, what death alone prevented at the hands of her father. In plainer words, it reminds you that one-half his fortune was to have been theirs; and that half it asks you to give them, and to keep the rest yourself. That is her proposal!
VANS. And you further ask me why I have not considered it. For the simplest reasons, madam, because I'm not a fool.
MAD L. Don't put it in that way, sir; be serious, pray be serious!
VANS. But I can't be serious, Lecompte. My father took a high moral view of this matter; I have lived long enough on the Continent to do nothing of the sort. My course in this business is as plain as two and two make four. I have got the money, and I should be an idiot--a born idiot--if I parted with it; that's my point of view. I don't stand on my dignity; I don't meet you with the law, though it is all on my own side. I don't blame you for coming here to try and alter my resolution; I don't blame the two girls for wanting to dip their fingers into my purse. All I say is, I am not fool enough to open it. Pas si bête, as we used to say at Zurich; pas si bête! (returns plate to table.)
MAG. Am I to understand those as your last words?
VANS. Precisely, madam.
MAG. You have got their father's money, and you refuse to part with a single farthing of it?
VANS. Most accurately stated.
MAD.